Assassination of Kennedy- Children Learning about Terror

I am taking up Batya’s prodding to blog about where we were when President Kennedy was murdered....I wasn’t sure that I could do a whole blog on this, but it grew as I typed..
I was in 6th grade the day which President Kennedy was killed.(OK, now you know how old I am!) I had viewed him as an impeccable person, not knowing the scandals that later arose around him, and viewing everything with a child’s (you are “right” or “wrong”) mind. It was rainy outside, and when our two teachers came in to tell us "Something upsetting", I thought a tornado was on the way. The shock of the announcement was tremendous. WE watched TV there in class and saw all the announcements. It was one of my first contacts with the reality that there are evil people in the world. (Also, somewhere about that same time, I came across some old magazines covering the Eichmann trial (in the office of our local airport), where I first became aware of the types of things perpetrated during the holocaust, which needless to say, left me in shock.)
The question is, how can we help our children handle this type of occurrence? (And in Israel, we are not talking about 6th graders, but much younger children.) I always suspect that if a kid is noticing the tension of the adults around, and is grasping at least some of the information, he needs to be told. Then he can be told that it is rare, and not likely to happen to his family. And I always add: “We don’t choose when we die. We can only choose how to live.”

He Killed an Old Lady

My daughter has a friend who has a friend who killed an old lady last week. He was in the territories, part of an army operation to flush out a known terrorist, when suddenly a woman ran from the house. He thought that she was about to shoot, and instinctively shot before he realized that it was an old lady. He doesn’t feel guilty. The guilt he places at Hamas’s door. But he is not proud of any “heroic” deed. In fact, he is upset that he was the cause, even inadvertently, of shedding the blood of a civilian.
But Hamas, in sending motors to civilian houses in sderot, ones not hiding terrorists, have no such qualms. They are proud of killing, and the pledge is that they will continue. Continue to TARGET kids, moms….. and tonight, high school students in Jerusalem.

Terrorism and the “Crazy Lady -Part 2, or HATE EVIL

Now for the other side. While all of the previous post is true, it does not mean allowing evil to run wild… or at all. While one can try to understand what is going on in the mind of a terrorist, or a criminal, that does not mean letting him do what he wants. We can not allow abusers, criminals, or terrorists to do as they please. If the only way to stop an impending terror attack is to torture a partner of the perpetrator, than do it. Not because of hate, but to prevent an evil act.
The Torah says that one who has pity on evil people, will eventually be doing a hateful act to innocent bystanders. As much as we need to “understand” those who are evil, we have first a mandate to understand the public’s need for protection. Society needs to impose penalties for crime, not only as a deterrent, but as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said, as an indicator to the public of how wrong and immoral such actions are.
Understanding the evil person should only be used to try and solve the underlying problems. It should never be used to condone the evil intent or behavior.